Go away and shut up, Williamson tells Putin

RUSSIA should ‘go away and shut up’ after it threatened tit-for-tat expulsions of British diplomats, the Defence Secretary said yesterday.

In his first major speech, Gavin Williamson said the UK would wait for Vladimir Putin’s response to sanctions over the attempted assassination of double agent Sergei Skripal before considering further punishments.

He denied Britain was in a new cold war, but said relations were ‘exceptionally chilly’. He then spelt out Moscow’s military might, warning: ‘Russia is capable of much more.’

Earlier in the day Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, warned that British diplomats would be kicked out soon. In the biggest purge of Kremlin embassy staff since the 1980s, Theresa May on Wednesday expelled 23 Russian spies posing as diplomats.

The British embassy in Moscow is expecting the number of UK staff given their marching orders to be lower than 23 however.

Asked about possible Russian retaliation, Mr Williamson said: ‘We will look at how Russia responds to what we have done.

‘It is absolutely atrocious and outrageous what Russia did in Salisbury. We have responded to that. Frankly Russia should go away and should shut up.

‘But if they do respond to the action we have taken we are considering everything and we will look at our options but it would be wrong to pre-judge their response.’

The Russian embassy appeared to mock the Defence Secretary on Twitter after his speech, writing: ‘Frankness appreciated!’

And the Russian defence ministry called the 41-year- old minister a ‘vulgar old harpy’, accusing him of ‘intellectual impotence’.

Mr Williamson’s comments came during a keynote speech at the Rolls-Royce plant in Bristol, where engines for Royal Navy ships are made. Referring to the Salisbury attack,